1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an AI-based adaptive vehicle control system and, more particularly, to an AI-based adaptive vehicle control system which is capable of performing a follow-up driving matching with the driving characteristics of a driver by controlling a driving condition of a vehicle in accordance with a dynamic behavior of a driver obtained through learning of the driving characteristics of the driver.
2. Description of the Related Art
A vehicle running state control apparatus has heretofore been known which is composed of a radar device mounted on an automobile so as to constantly monitor the distance between the automobile and the automobile in front and the relative speed and accelerate or decelerate the automobile in correspondence with the degree of danger.
The system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 91500 (1985) is known as an example of this type of running state control apparatus. FIG. 14 is a schematic block diagram of this system. In FIG. 14, a radar device 10 having an antenna ANT mounted on an automobile detects the distance between this automobile and the automobile running in front and the relative speed, and a speed sensor 12 obtains the running speed of the automobile itself.
The detected distance between the automobiles, the relative speed and the running speed of the automobile itself are supplied to a signal processor 14. The signal processor 14 calculates the danger index from these detection signals. More specifically, the appropriate distance between the automobiles which is necessary for stopping the automobile without bumping against the automobile in front when the automobile in front decelerates is obtained from the running state of the automobile in front and the running state of the automobile itself and the danger index D is calculated from the following equation: EQU D=log (appropriate distance between the automobiles actual distance between the automobiles)
The danger index calculated by the signal processor 14 is supplied to a display unit 16 and displayed or the signal processor 14 judges whether to accelerate or decelerate the automobile from the danger index and supplies a command to the actuator so as to automatically control the brake and the accelerator. In this way, it is possible to follow the automobile in front with safety.
In this system, however, the appropriate distance between the automobiles and the danger index are uniformly determined by the relative running state and cannot fit running state which is different depending upon the vehicle environment and the driver.
To solve this problem, a control apparatus such as that disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 6031/1986 has conventionally been proposed. In this apparatus, a calculator 24 calculates a distance between the automobiles to be set, namely, the appropriate distance between the automobiles on the basis of the detection signals of a vehicle speed detecting means 18 for detecting the running speed of the automobile and the means 20 for detecting the distance between the automobile and the automobile in front, and the acceleration and deceleration is controlled on the basis of the thus-set distance between the automobiles, as shown in a block diagram of FIG. 15. If the driver wants to change the set distance between the automobiles in accordance with the running state, the driver turns the knob of a manual distance adjusting means 22 so as to change the correction coefficient used for calculation of the distance between the automobiles to be set, thereby correctively increasing or reducing the appropriate distance between the automobiles.
In this conventional apparatus, however, it is necessary to operate the knob whenever the driver wants to change the appropriate distance between the automobiles. The operation for setting the distance at a desired value by turning the knob each time is cumbersome. The merit of automatic follow-up driving existing in that the driver has only to concentrate on the steering operation is evacuated and since it is difficult for the driver to set the distance at a desired value by turning the knob during driving, the attention of the driver is directed toward the handling of the knob, which is a problem from the point of view of safety.